Hale, that turned out great. I think you'll like the result on a solid board vs plywood better
_________________ATTENTION MEMBERS! If you take the TC War Canoe on a head hunting party, be sure to remove the decapitated bodies before returning it. See club bylaws for more details

Hey all. No progress on the branding irons yet. Had to do Tiki Tuesday last night. We did our Tiki White Elephant, and I came home with some nice Siestware and two mugs from the Mai Kai.

However, I did do some testing with materials for a super secret swag lamp project that I'm working on. I can't say what it is, but I now know the following:

1. The material is perfect for swag lamps.
2. It's nearly indestructible. I beat it with a hammer, and I can't get it to break. I tried using a vice, throwing it, nothing. It's in the mid 70's on the D scale for Shore Hardness, for those of you whom that makes sense to.
3. The light is slightly diffused, making for excellent transmission.
4. It tints REALLY well.
5. It's a heck of a lot more cost effective than traditional resins.
6. It's got a high heat resistance, making it safe for use with lighting.

I've got quite a lot more work to do before I'm ready to start building, but there's a bit more testing/molding to do, and I'll keep this space updated with the progress. When I'm done, they'll be for sale in the Marketplace. It'll be the first of it's kind, and I'm super excited.

Here's the first two tests. The orange was the first, and had far too many bubbles to be acceptable. The blue was the second, and is almost completely air bubble free. I found only 5 near the back of the item while polishing.

And while I was at it, I ordered a case of restaurant grade mai tai glasses, and will be engraving them for my home bar, and if anyone else is interested after I get a successful run (which should be relatively easy), I'll be doing them for home bars, as well as with some classic designs like the ones that were available last year through the Hukilau site. Obviously not that design, but I've started to cook some things up.

I didn't get much of a chance to work on my own work last night, as I spent the night making a branding iron for my wahine's brother's girlfriend's roller derby team. Their annual awards are this weekend, and she knew about my rum branding iron, so she asked me to make one of the awards. The award: Grade A Fresh Meat, for the best new player. The roller derby is pretty big around these here parts, with three league's within an hour and a half of Pittsburgh, with two of the leagues being televised by the regional cable company. I even performed at a bout in the fall, as part of a special event, that they said was too much for cable. That's right, Lucky the Painproof Man, too gross for cable.

Anyway, without further ado, here is the non-function (at her request) branding iron:

It's a t-bone steak, with the letter A, gold hammertone finish.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled tiki:
I got a few things tiki related done. I finished the RUM branding iron, though with all the other mayhem, I forgot to take photos of the results in non-laminated wood. I'm very happy with the results, and so I finished off the iron with a coating that will resist temperature up to 2000F, though I don't know yet if the coating will stay on the part that actually contact the wood. We'll have to see. I'll have to get a photo of that next week. For now, here is the finished RUM branding iron:

I got one of my molds poured for the chunk lamp. I'm super excited, and I can't wait to show some progress here. I've also started work on my rum crate lamp, which is the whole reason I did the branding iron. I got the idea from Tiki Diablo and have wanted one for my home bar since I saw it. More on that next week as well. For now, may your rum bottle always be filled!

Just a small update for today. My mold is dried, and I used about a gallon of the resin that I went with to produce about 60 chunks or so for the lamp. I've done them in every color I could without mixing tints. Orange, yellow, red, green, blue, purple, dark green. I'm waiting on some florescent tints to come in to get more colors, but for now, it looks like I'm stuck with those. I'm making another mold with different chunk shapes and sizes, and I'll cast those in the new colors, and mix some of my own from primary colored tints.

And here's the pile I currently have.

I'm thinking of making a rectangular or tubular lamp first, just to get the hang of arranging the chunks, before moving onto to my final design. Not sure. Well, that's all I've done today, other than cast more multicolored tikis out of the same material.

Oh, and I've got another project that I'm starting. I recently was fortunate enough to buy a Gecko Hawaiian Scorpion Bowl. I was unfortunate, however, that despite reasonable packaging, the USPS decided that the box was best transported by using it as a soccer bowl. The bowl did not make it. It kills me when tiki mugs are broken in shipment, especially hand made ones. I was heartbroken, and although the USPS will refund what I paid for it, I can't get another one.

I could glue it back together, but bits are missing, and so the gaps would show, it wouldn't be usable, and, well, it wouldn't even look nice. I see no way to have a function mug again. Some of you that know, or work with pottery may be familiar with Kintsugi. For those that aren't, it's the Japanese art of pottery/ceramic repair that uses gold sprinkled on a resin.

Although I can't afford gold, I can afford resin, and gold powder used in the casting industry, which is just a brass alloy. And so, in the next few days, I'll be attempting to reassemble the Gecko bowl. Pictures to follow.